


Manifest Destiny

by Lyrstzha



Category: Stargate Universe
Genre: Altered Mental States, Backstory, Bonding, Canon Compliant, Character Development, Character Study, Gen, Guilt, Human Experimentation, Post-Canon, Science, Some Plot, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 19:45:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5468690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I think I've worked out the bad news on my own,” Rush says as crisply as he can, like that will keep the tremble out of his voice, and now he's the one who can't quite look at Eli. “What's the good news?”</p><p>“Um. Nobody will wonder if you're lying about anything anymore?” Eli offers weakly.</p><p>Rush sighs and rubs the heel of his hand against his forehead right where the ache is worst. “I don't think 'good news' means what you think it means.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Manifest Destiny

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Joylee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joylee/gifts).



Regaining consciousness from stasis is unsurprisingly difficult. It feels a bit like waking from a long crash following days of sleepless work – which is a familiar state for Rush, of course, so he is rolling his shoulders to loosen the joints from force of habit before he even steps out of his pod. The left, as always, twinges harder. The first thing he sees after he blinks some of the bleariness from his eyes is Eli's nervous grin.

“Eli?” he rasps, and his voice is thin and rusty, so he swallows with a dry click and tries again. “Something's wrong.” It's a statement and not a question, because the way Eli isn't quite looking him in the eye is answer enough. He swallows again, enough to grit out, “Tell me.”

“Um.” Eli takes a breath, and the exhale comes out as a quick flood of, “So, you know, the Ancients were kind of assholes. I mean, _advanced_ assholes, right, but still. I _so_ get that now.” He twitches a bit on the next inhale, then starts on a new barrage of words. “Oh hey, water! I felt really dehydrated when I first woke up, so I thought I'd have some ready when I woke _you_ up, but then it just totally slipped my – ”

“ _Eli_ ,” Rush cuts across him firmly, finally registering the cold and dimness and stale-tasting air that surrounds them with all due alarm. “Did we make it safely to the next galaxy?”

Eli jumps a bit and nods eagerly, his flitting gaze settling somewhere around Rush's chin. “Oh! Yeah. Yeah, we made it. We didn't even oversleep or anything. We should be hitting a star to fill up the tank pretty soon, actually. And obviously I'm not dead, so there's that.”

Rush heaves a relieved breath. “Not that I'm not glad to see you alive and well, Mr. Wallace, but I'd appreciate it if you'd cut the bloody stalling and drop the other shoe now.” He glances around them for some clue as to what's wrong and sees no one, though the lights are so low and the nearest pods are so deeply shadowed that he can't quite tell if they're still occupied. Surely Colonel Young, at least, should be up and around. Rush can't imagine that there's any way Young, suspicious bastard that he is, would not have told Eli to wake him up before Rush. “Is everyone else all right?”

“Yes... _they_ are.” And Rush can hear the hesitation and slight stress on 'they,' and his eyes narrow. He steps forward and Eli matches him with a nervous step back, which disturbs Rush on a level so basic he doesn't even have to think about it to know it's all kinds of wrong. Eli is not supposed to be afraid of him in _that_ way. “I'm _really_ sorry,” Eli says quietly, finally raising his eyes all the way to Rush's but still cringing backward a little. “I am. It's just, I didn't want to _die_ , you know? But I would have gone through with it anyway. I really would, if the pod hadn't gotten fixed in time.”

Something about the construction of that last phrase is subtly off. Rush can't quite put his finger on it until he recalls a flash of Gloria, still healthy and laughing as she played a new piece for him, saying, “I'm sure it's only me, but I always hear counterpoint like passive voice, because it seems to imply an effect without taking responsibility for the cause.” Ah fucking _ha_.

“'Gotten fixed',” Rush repeats slowly. “That implies a curious lack of agency on your part.” Eli flinches, so Rush knows for sure he's on the right track. “What did you _do_ , Eli?”

Eli straightens and pushes his shoulders back, like a man preparing to face his firing squad with dignity. “I tried to fix my pod. I tried and I tried, and I was almost out of time. I did everything I could think of. And then Franklin came to me.”

“Franklin?” Rush's eyebrows shoot up. “You mean _Destiny_.”

“Yeah, right.” Eli shrugs with a sigh. “It's just easier to call him like I see him. It. Whatever.” Eli shrugs again. “Anyway. He came to me just before the deadline and offered to help me fix the pod. If I'd make a deal with him. I thought you shut that program down, and who knew there was even enough power left for him to manifest like that?”

“What _kind_ of deal?” Rush demands, already knowing that he's not going to like the answer.

“You know how you disabled some of _Destiny_ 's programs after what happened to the Colonel with those simulations? Franklin offered to show me how to fix the pod if I, you know...turned them back on. And added permissions for some other programs, too.” The last sentence comes out softly, like it's the guiltiest part of this confession. Eli's voice gains strength a little as he adds, “But I, um. Sort of bargained him down to certain...parameters.”

“Which are _what_ , exactly?”

“Well, _Destiny_ was most worried about the Colonel before, but he's doing better. And I told Franklin that pushing him again would be really, like, counterproductive anyway, because you _know_ how much worse he got during the simulations last time. And we all know Matt is every shade of awesome, but he really isn't ready for this much command yet. So the Colonel was out. And I guess Camile's doing okay, as far as _Destiny_ 's concerned. Or less _not_ okay, anyway.” Eli looks at him with big eyes. “Which left you,” he almost whispers. “But just you, we agreed.”

“You gave _Destiny_ the ability to run me through simulations?” Rush bites out. Anger and alarm rush adrenaline through his blood, chasing away the lingering stiffness in his joints and replacing it with the drive to surge into action and beat this problem into submission with willpower and genius. Or possibly Eli, and _then_ this problem.

Eli winces and gives him a sickly smile that looks like it hurts. “Um. For the greater good?” 

Which, damn it, is actually true and completely relevant and Rush is just not ready to admit any of that. “And I suppose the rest of the crew is somewhere laughing about the justice of all this?” Rush almost snarls instead. Of fucking course they are; why does he even wonder? He thinks savagely that it'll almost serve them right when simulations drive him over the edge and he makes a mistake in a crisis, but even in this moment a soft voice in his head that sounds like Gloria whispers _another mistake_.

“Yeah, no, I just.” Eli gestures around them vaguely. “I mean, okay, we have enough life support to last us to the star, so it's fine to wake everyone up now. But I thought I should tell you first, so I woke you up first. Plus this way I can disappoint you and Colonel Young consecutively, so you don't outnumber me while you're yelling.”

“Then if you're done disappointing me, you may as well wake him up,” Rush growls, and turns on his heel to flee. It'll take time for Eli to wake everyone, surely, and Rush should have a while alone before anyone comes looking for him in earnest. Enough time to figure out how to fix this, perhaps, or at least enough to find his equilibrium by the time he has to talk to anyone else about his impending virtual torture calmly and rationally. Hasn't he been tortured enough times in the last few years?

“Actually,” Eli calls out hastily, and Rush stops short and wheels back to glare at him incredulously. “Uh, about those other programs I also added... How much do you know about artificial neurons?”

“No,” Rush just denies flatly, because he's had enough of being a lab rat for one lifetime and he absolutely does not want to hear that his ship has been meddling around inside his skull.

“I guess that means you know something about them,” Eli says, eyeing him warily. “Well, I have good news and bad news.”

Rush opens his mouth to demand the bad news, but the surrounding shadows shade suddenly into deepest black and there's a roaring in his ears like the sea.

_“Well, I have good news and bad news,” his mother says, with that kind of upbeat, consoling tone that she's picked up from the doctors she works with. Only she isn't Rush's mother, she's Eli's, but right now that isn't a meaningful distinction somehow. “The bad news is my test came back positive. But it's going to be okay. The good news is that I have the best care and I can start on medication to manage this right away. Your dad and I don't want you to worry.”_

_But he did and he does and time rushes forward until he knows how it feels to listen to his mother crying when she thinks he's asleep, keening muffled sobs that are worse than any nightmare he ever had. He knows how it feels to watch the driveway for his dad long after there's no hope, and to promise himself he will never be like his father, never be the guy who runs away from people who depend on him. And he knows the crushing guilt of sitting in a classroom at MIT and being relieved to think about something else for a while, of not being afraid and worried all the time._

_“But I thought you were doing so well,” his mother says over the phone. “This isn't because of me, is it? You're not dropping out because of me?”_

_But it is, of course it is, even if he would never, ever say so, and the only thing worse than being there with her, helplessly caught in the terrifying and exhausting country between hope and dread, is _not_ being there. What if she gets sick and he isn't there to take care of her? What if there's something he could do or say or be that would keep her healthy? What if she dies alone while he's scribbling equations in his notebook miles away? He could go on playing with numbers for hours after, not knowing that the world had ended._

_So of course he comes home, and he cracks silly jokes about the meaninglessness of academia and acts like he doesn't see bills piling up. And he doesn't say that that's why he takes a stupid job at the Doublemeat Palace, he just washes grease out of his hair every day and pretends that it doesn't matter that everyone he knows has moved on with their lives. It doesn't matter that he's nothing and no one and that he can feel himself growing stupider every time he asks if someone wants fries with that. And it doesn't even matter that he gets fired from that awful, soul-sucking job like the loser he is._

_“I could have buried myself in math.” Eli's voice is as clear as if he is speaking right into Rush's ear instead of his best friend Rick's, though the distinction between them is still so muddy and mostly meaningless that either or both of them might be speaking, and either of them might have been there that night with Rick, confessing quietly over voice chat after the rest of their Halo group had signed off. “I could have lived in that so hard that there was nothing else. But love is showing up on the bad days no matter how bad they are, even when it's the last thing you want to do. Somewhere my dad is waking up every day knowing that he doesn't deserve to be loved himself because he couldn't do that. If I never did anything else right in my life, I'd still be better than him.”_

And then his vision is bleeding back in and Rush finds himself tangled on the ground like a broken puppet with Eli kneeling over him. 

“Okay, that was different,” Eli mumbles shakily, and it's now abundantly clear that he and Rush are separate people. “I didn't think it was going to be like _that_.”

“Your mother,” Rush starts, not entirely certain where he means to go with that sentence.

“Your _wife_ ,” Eli counters. “You ran away sometimes, lost yourself under Cheyenne Mountain working at the SGC. But you didn't _leave_.”

“I wasn't there for her, not when she needed me,” Rush whispers, horrified to find tears soaking into his hair. “I wasn't.”

“You were there when she was dying. The hospital called you and you went. I saw you.” 

And Rush doesn't even wonder how much Eli saw or how many secrets he might know now. He just hitches out, each word burning and bitter in his throat, “I was there when she was so gone the sounds she made weren't words anymore and I couldn't even tell for sure if she knew me. What's a few last hours of drugged half-life to all the days before that when I ran away? There's no making that right, not unless I can make it so none of it ever happened and I never failed her.” He feels raw and stripped, like the world is sandpaper against his mind, and Eli was absolutely right about the utter assholes the Ancients must have been.

Eli tilts his head and looks down at Rush solemnly, seeming even younger somehow, maybe like the coltish fourteen year old who'd never had friends over because he was terrified of bringing their germs home to his mother. “I'm all the way out here,” he says. “And I love it, I do, but I'm not there for my mom and maybe I'll never make that right either.”

And of course he'd known about Eli's mother, but somehow in chasing the myth of a power that can remake the universe and wipe his failures away, he's never really thought about the way he's replicating his own grief in Eli's life. And how many others on this ship? Maybe none of it will matter, not if he finds the power to shape time and space that legends promise, but what if he gets to the end of _Destiny_ 's journey and still can't make any of it right? He's promised himself over and over that any sacrifice will be undone at the end of the journey, any ugly choices will be unmade. But what if this reality, this timeline, is the only one he ever gets? He swallows down bile and struggles to sit up.

“Right then, artificial neurons. I think I've worked out the bad news on my own,” he says as crisply as he can, like that will keep the tremble out of his voice, and now he's the one who can't quite look at Eli. “What's the good news?”

“Um. Nobody will wonder if you're lying about anything anymore?” Eli offers weakly.

Rush sighs and rubs the heel of his hand against his forehead right where the ache is worst. “I don't think 'good news' means what you think it means.”

 

 

It is maybe another fifteen minutes before Colonel Young finds him on the bridge, which is somewhat less than Rush expected. He stabs his fingers viciously at the console he's been working on and pretends not to see Young come in. He is absolutely absorbed by the star looming large in front of them, thank you very much. And he is definitely not still shaking slightly and fumbling for his sense of self.

“Rush,” Young says gently, and it is so much harder to deal with his gentleness than his anger; it hurts in a way that his fist never has. “You know you really need to let TJ check you out. I had Eli wake her up next, and she's setting up for you in the infirmary.”

Rush darts a wary glance sideways. As he'd suspected, Young has on his concerned commander face. It's enough to make him snap, “Not to disparage Lieutenant Johansen's medical abilities, but what exactly do you think she can do about the brand new array of artificial neurons in my brain? Has she perhaps been studying enzyme-based biosensors and organic electronic ion pumps in her spare time?”

“It gives us someplace to start on this,” Young counters patiently. “Who knows, she might find something we can work with, and I can ask for a specialist when I use the stones to report in. Which I will do just as soon as we get you to TJ. If you've got a better first move, I'm open to suggestions.” He spreads his arms in invitation. “You know I can relate.”

Rush wants to bristle at the sympathy – he doesn't _need_ it, he doesn't need coddling from anyone, damn it, least of all _Young_ – but, as it has ever since their tenuous understanding when he'd asked for Young's help with _Destiny_ 's mission, Young's calm supportiveness just _settles_ Rush in spite of himself. He feels his jaw unclench a bit, and he grudgingly allows, “ _Destiny_ 's had three years to re-route functions and hide programming specifically to keep me from shutting this down. I'm going to be a while cracking this.”

“Exactly,” Young agrees with a nod, as if he has any idea how long fighting with _Destiny_ 's computer might take. “And I promise Eli will keep working the problem while TJ looks you over.”

“Eli's worked this problem _enough_ , thanks,” Rush grumbles, without quite as much heat as he'd like. He lets himself be herded gently but firmly out the door by Young's hand on his shoulder, and he honestly can't remember exactly when he stopped flinching away from Young's touch. It's been awhile, so it's maybe another thing that was born out of their tenuous understanding.

“Eli was scared and desperate,” Young insists quietly, and his hand tightens meaningfully on Rush's shoulder for a second before dropping away, but not enough to hurt. “You know you'd have done the same in his shoes.”

“That is _not_ the point,” Rush argues immediately, but it's true and it kind of takes the wind out of his sails. “You'd be furious with me if _I_ had let an uppity operating system alter _his_ brain,” he finally mutters under his breath. “ _More_ than furious.”

Young's hand lands on his shoulder again, startling Rush even as it swings him around to face Young full on. Young fixes him with an earnest expression. He says, slowly and clearly, like he thinks Rush needs to hear it, “I'd be glad – just like I am now – that neither of my best scientists were dead. And I would trust that you did the best you could with what you had.”

Which he bloody well _wouldn't_ , and Rush gapes in outrage for the briefest of seconds before spluttering, “ _Trust_?! You'd _never_ trust that I – ”

“I'd want to,” Young interrupts him, still calm and quiet. “Don't say never. We're getting there. And I really would be glad that you weren't dead.”

Rush opens his mouth – maybe to argue, maybe just to let out the irony in a humorless laugh – but the world goes abruptly dark. He thinks _oh no, not again, especially not with you, it was bad enough with Eli_ , and maybe he says it aloud, but he can't be sure. Young's concerned eyes on his own are the last thing to fade out, like the smile of a Cheshire cat.

_“The thing is,” Jack O'Neill tells him with a clap to the shoulder, even though the shoulder is Young's and not Rush's, but once again that doesn't matter, “we're just here to keep the smart people alive and out of trouble. It's a, whatyamacallit, symbiotic thing. You take care of them, they save the world and probably your ass. That's the deal. And soldiers like you and me, we're replaceable. Geniuses like Carter and Jackson, not so much. If you plan on ever borrowing either one of 'em, by the way, there are some ground rules I'm going to need to go over with you.” And he's not remotely kidding about that, which Young knows because he's already been warned six ways from Sunday that anyone who takes out O'Neill's geniuses and comes home without them will be very, very sorry. Everyone knows the last team who failed to bring back Doctor Jackson ended up stationed in Antarctica indefinitely._

_And Young takes it absolutely to heart, getting just as possessive and protective of the scientists on his own team. They are amazing and brilliant and_ his _, and he's got his own set of ground rules if anyone ever tries to borrow Doctor Roth or Doctor Strong Wing; Antarctica might be involved, if he can swing it. The day they both hold utterly still while he shoots tentacled things swarming up their bodies, trusting him so much they don't even flinch when he tells them not to, he's so proud it almost hurts. And when he leaps off a cliff because they tell him they're sure there has to be a concealed bridge ten feet below, he knows exactly what O'Neill meant by 'symbiotic thing.' It is, and it's perfect._

_The first time he ever wonders if maybe he's not good enough for command is when they're running for the gate under heavy fire, Lieutenant Grace Washington dragging a bleeding Jeff Roth while Young carries Rain Strong Wing on his back. He can hear Rain muttering insistently in his ear, half delirious with pain and probably still smarter than he is, and he turns his head a bit to ask her what she's trying to say just in time to see the blast that burns away Grace's face and the whole of Jeff's left side. The afterimage burns into his retinas and never really seems to fade completely, not even when Rain gets drunk with him at the wake and swears so vehemently that it's not his fault that she almost makes him believe it. Not even when Ronald Greer replaces Grace as his steady right arm and wise-cracking Doctor Quirona settles in as his new anthropologist._

_Definitely not when he also loses Rafe Quirona to some kind of venomous, giant spider-thing a year later. And most certainly not when he loses thirty-seven people to the horrific clusterfuck that he will not learn for years is down to Telford's brainwashed betrayal and comes home broken in body and spirit. If he were a better commander he wouldn't have lost so many good people, and he wouldn't need to scream himself awake every night and pretend not to have panic attacks. If he were a better_ person _, maybe he wouldn't try to drown his sorrow by rushing into a marriage with his physical therapist just because she's the only person who looks at his damage like it's something that might be fixed someday._

_“I can't, Sir,” he says to General O'Neill. “I appreciate your faith in me, but I can't take on command of the Icarus Expedition.”_

_O'Neill raises an eyebrow and prompts, “Because?”_

_“Personal reasons,” Young forces between gritted teeth._

_“Uh huh,” O'Neill says skeptically. “Okay, you and your personal reasons can command Icarus Base. You'll just have to send the expedition off under Telford's command, assuming the big brains work out the ninth chevron problem. But I don't think you're gonna find you like watching them head out into the unknown while you sit back on that ball of rock and twiddle your thumbs. Don't say I didn't warn you.”_

_So he goes, and it's really not so bad, because Icarus is so quiet that the SGC treats it like training wheels for military personnel. Greer comes along too, and sometimes his unswerving faith and loyalty almost make Young think he's the person Greer believes him to be. So that's something, too. There's a low hum of excitement for the scientists on Icarus, but for Young it's two years of drills and reports and rotating in new recruits to cut their teeth on a low-key offworld assignment. The most dangerous thing that happens is a stomach bug that makes the rounds. The panic attacks come fewer and farther between, and when he's on leave Earthside he actually doesn't need to be drunk to let Emily put her hands on him. Not that she wants to quite as much since he went off to Icarus when she asked him not to – even less when he confesses his affair with TJ, which of course he wouldn't have had if he were a better commander. She is so beautiful and she trusted him, and he's a selfish bastard who shouldn't be trusted to look after anyone anymore. At least he's not going on the goddamn expedition._

_And then all of a sudden ships are firing on them and the planet is blowing up, and then they're incomprehensibly far away from home. He wakes up with a bear of a headache and agony burning up his leg to find that he's in charge of terrified, unprepared people on a creaking wreck of a ship with hardly any supplies to speak of and a chief scientist who treats him more like a mark than a partner and protector. And there's no one else who can lead, because Camile's not used to running a military operation, his lieutenants aren't ready for this, and Rush would inspire mutiny inside of a day. To make things worse, he suspects that Rush is right about one thing: Young's lost the ability to make the hard decisions for the greater good, and General O'Neill even says as much. He doesn't even want to hear the words 'greater good' anymore._

_Hardest of all, Young's out of the old symbiotic habit with his science team, and Rush just won't let him back into it; it's not supposed to work like this. Which is no excuse, none at all, for trying to kill Rush. He has never been so ashamed in his life, and it's certainly not for lack of competition. What he does to Rush is a betrayal of every life that has ever been entrusted to him. But he can't really say he's sorry – though he is, so very much that it's a crushing weight in his chest every day – not to Rush, who will use it against him like another lever in the struggle Young desperately doesn't want to be having with him. Why does it have to be like this? But if the ship and his people believe he can do this, he really needs to suck it up and be worthy of their faith, because hasn't he failed enough good people already?_

Rush gasps like he's just surfaced from a deep dive, heaving in air and flailing a bit. The corridor lights shine in his eyes, so they must have passed through the star while he was...away. For a moment he's completely confused about who he is, Young's memories of him getting all tangled up with his own self-concept. But then he sees Young standing pressed against the far wall of the corridor trying to look nonthreatening, hands open and raised in front of him like Rush is a dangerous animal he's trying to soothe, and it's so much like waking up on the Nakai ship that Rush is a little more clear on which one of them is which.

“This is ever weirder than Eli said,” Young murmurs under his breath, and Rush makes a choked noise that's meant as absolute agreement.

“So _that's_ why you've never trusted me enough to tell me anything,” Young says a little more loudly, and Rush has to wonder what secrets he gave up himself while he was living Young's, but only for a moment. “I didn't even remember that you urged me to accept the expedition command the day we met. You asked me not to leave it to Telford and I laughed you off, and you thought I was just another ignorant caveman who wasn't interested in any mission that was discovery for discovery's sake. I left you to him, and he tried to get you booted off your last chance at making things right.” He is looking at Rush like he's never seen him before, and even though he is the very last person Rush would have picked to share memories with, somehow this isn't the end of the world. “I don't hate you because you're smarter than me, you know. I'm not one of those shipyard bullies who beat you up for knowing things I can't even pronounce. I don't actually hate you at all.”

“I know,” breathes Rush, because he really does, now. “I'm sorry,” he says, for both of them and from both of them, and it's a relief that he's certain is not only his.

Young edges a little closer and slowly drops a hand to reach for his radio. It looks like he's still trying not to spook Rush, which seems weird until Rush realizes he's shaking so much his teeth rattle and his heart is racing so hard he's panting in painful gasps. “TJ,” Young murmurs into the radio as if Rush won't be able to hear, “I think you'd better come to us after all. Corridor just outside the bridge.”

Rush wants to say that he can get up and walk to the infirmary, but the world starts sort of cutting in and out like a badly tuned television, so maybe not. Over the static he thinks he says, “I want that, too. The way it's supposed to be,” but he's not sure the words come out intelligibly. Young's hand lands on his shoulder again though, warm and steady, so maybe he got the idea across. 

Rush blinks after the snowy static clears to find Young back across the corridor and TJ leaning over him and checking his pupils. “Please don't think about Colonel Young,” pops out of his mouth. “Just, no. I can't see that. Remember _anything else_.”

TJ frowns down at him in obvious confusion and maybe a little offense, but Young gives a startled bark of laughter and Rush can see him trying to contain a grin when TJ glances back.

Then it seems like reality blurs as it does when they come out of FTL, but he knows their first jump post-star in this galaxy should last more than a day, so it must be his fucked up perception. The next grey-out clears, and he's in the infirmary. He thinks the shaking and flickering lights is just him for a second, but then the ship shudders hard and he's sure it isn't. He tries to push himself up, but TJ's firm hand on his chest pins him down.

“I need to – ” he tries.

“Don't start,” she warns him. “You are in no way fit for duty.”

“We're _under attack_. I need to be on the bridge. Who's firing on us?” He tries to struggle against her, but it's embarrassingly futile.

“Never mind who. You need to stay right where you are. I've got you on fluids to bring up your blood pressure,” she nods at the IV Rush hadn't even noticed at his side, let alone in his arm, “but you're showing all the symptoms of shock. I just can't figure out what _kind_. You need to stay warm and quiet until I have a chance to get a specialist from Earth here.”

“That's not going to happen if we all _die_ ,” he insists.

“Do not make me tie you to this bed, Doctor Rush,” she says evenly. “Wounded will probably be coming in any time now, and if I can't trust you not to make a break for it while my back is turned...,” she looks at him meaningfully, and he's reminded that TJ can actually be a little scary sometimes.

Rush only has a moment to register this before the shadows bloom like ink dropped in a bowl of water, and he briefly wonders, before he slides under the surface of the memory with her and immediately can't figure out whose perspective is whose, if maybe it's not her fault and one of his memories set off the link – if that's even the way this works, which he hasn't collected enough data to extrapolate yet. Not that he's looking forward to filling out that data set.

_Either way, there is her sister crying, or maybe it's Rush's sister, he's confused. All he knows is that her name is Talia and he loves her with a fierce protectiveness that no amount of bickering teenage arguments can tarnish._

_“This was supposed to be_ your _break,” she's sobbing. “You're the oldest, you're supposed to go first. It's all my fault – if I hadn't blown off trig and lost my scholarship, you wouldn't have to...”_

_“It doesn't matter,” TJ is whispering into her hair, hugging her close. “It doesn't. I'm going to sign on with the Air Force and get a scholarship through them. It's going to be fine.”_

_Talia is shaking her head against TJ's shoulder and sobbing harder. “It should be you,” she's mumbling into the cotton of TJ's shirt. “Mom and Dad have been planning for your med school graduation for _years_.”_

_TJ strokes her back comfortingly. “So they'll go to yours instead,” she says. “As long as_ one _of us gets there, that's what matters. It doesn't have to be me.”_

And there's something there that he almost starts to understand, but this time the memory ends sharply, more like jumping into freezing water than coming up from being submerged. “What?” Rush gasps, not quite able to figure out how breathing works right away.

“I didn't know you worked two jobs in college,” TJ murmurs faintly.

“What?” Rush splutters again, pushing up on his elbows to look at her. She's holding a scalpel, and there's blood on her hand. “What?!” he demands in alarm, waving a hand urgently at the blood. He means to string together a more expressive sentence, but the words escape him.

TJ blinks at him, then down at her bloody hand. “Oh. Yes.” The hand holding the scalpel drops to her side, and she closes the bleeding one into a fist she holds against her chest. “I thought pain might bring us out of it,” she says, sounding more like herself.

“Well figured, but I think a good pinch might have done just as well,” Rush manages, scraping useable vocabulary out of his pounding head.

Then the ship shudders around them and TJ has to grab onto the corner of his bed to keep upright. Her blood smears across the coverlet, appearing to strobe red and black as the lights flicker, and it makes Rush want to be sick. 

“I didn't understand how bad it is,” TJ is saying, and that's an understatement if ever Rush heard one. “We have to get you out of here before anyone else comes in. You need to be isolated until we can deal with this...”

“My quarters,” Rush starts.

“...but continuously monitored,” TJ continues. “You might need help.”

“I'll take a kino,” Rush counters. “You can use it to make sure I'm not dying.”

“Do you even know if that's isolated enough? What's the range on this?” She gestures vaguely at Rush's head.

“How should _I_ know?” Rush grumbles. “Ask the damned computer. I've only been out of stasis an hour.”

TJ's gaze sharpens on his. “ _Three_ hours,” she says, and that would be more alarming if he wasn't busy falling over the side of the bed as the ship bucks around them. TJ slides to a knee to help pull him into a sitting position.

“Fine,” Rush says, untangling his limbs and staggering to his feet. “My quarters with a kino, and if that doesn't work I'll try getting further away.” He pretends his vision isn't wavering and sparkly at the edges.

TJ raises an eyebrow. “You think I don't know you're trying to get to the bridge, don't you?” He's reminded of how smart and collected she was that time she was in command, and this is a really inconvenient time for her to be so perceptive. “James!” she yells, and Rush greys out again, maybe for a minute, but it's hard to tell for sure.

When the fuzz clears, he's got one arm slung over Lieutenant James' shoulder and one over Sergeant Greer's; they're dragging him up a dim corridor and a kino is flitting along beside James. 

“It's like being told _not_ to think about pink elephants,” James is saying. “What's the _first_ thing you think about?” 

They round a corner into a larger corridor, and then Rush can hear boots pounding around them, people running god knows where. “Need to get to the bridge,” Rush manages to mumble, but he's not sure he says it loudly enough to hear, so he raises his voice. “I can't – ”

But then darkness surges and _this_ time is like being pounded by waves, one after the next with no moment to catch his breath.

_“I can't do this anymore,” his mother is saying, or someone's mother, who even knows? “Not another round of chemo, I just can't. This isn't living.”_

_“I can't see you anymore,” his boyfriend is saying. “It was fun and all, but I can't start a life with someone who's going to be stationed fuck knows where.”_

_“I can't get it out of my head,” he's saying to a circle of people, a support group. “I can't stop thinking about his hands on me and I'm just never going to get clean again. I feel like everybody can see the fingerprints.”_

_“I can't believe you took Grandma's money, you selfish little_ bastard _,” his father spits at him._

_“I can't even look at you anymore,” his friend says brokenly. “I trusted you more than anybody, and you knew how much I loved her. How could you do this to me?”_

_“I can't hear the baby's heartbeat anymore,” the doctor says, and he can't even look sympathetic like a real human being, so maybe it's his fault, maybe he did something that hurt the baby._

_“I can't see any titties, so you must not really be a girl, just a little queer,” the bully taunts, and it almost hurts more than what he's doing with his hands._

“Breathe!” James is shouting at Rush, and he chokes in air as his vision comes back. “All of you, clear the hall!”

He's looking right into the wide eyes of some Airman he couldn't even name if his life depended on it, and he can't help but gasp, almost accusingly, “I don't even _know_ you,” because how is this fair? What the hell is _Destiny_ after, making him share bits of memory with people he's never exchanged so much as a word with?

“I said, _clear the damn hall_!” James yells again, and the intimately unknown Airman startles and spins away, all the other momentarily suspended people in the corridor doing likewise.

Rush doesn't feel a weird sense of loss; he _doesn't_. He greys out this time with a sense of relief.

He comes back to himself alone in his room, for the first time feeling solitariness as a pain, like the silence in his head is crushing down on him. He has very little time to feel the ache of it, however, before _Destiny_ gives one last shudder and violently rips apart.

 

“This is a simulation,” Rush says as soon as he opens his eyes to TJ and the infirmary.

She blinks at him. “Doesn't feel like one to me,” she says with a shrug.

“That's what all the simulations say,” Rush snarks back. He tries to sit up, but he feels even worse this time around. The ship shakes around them and the lights flicker, and _this_ time, damn it, he's getting to the bridge if it kills him.

“Take it easy,” TJ urges him. “Do not make me tie you to this bed, Doctor Rush. Wounded will probably be coming in any time now, and if I can't trust you not to – ”

“Stop!” Rush cuts her off desperately. “Just stop right there. Don't say anything. Don't _think_ anything.” 

“What?” she says anyway, and Rush lets out a despairing cry as darkness surges around them, because he seriously does not have time for this.

_“What you need to do is keep the thread taut without pulling it too much,” her/his/their father is saying. “The fabric will gather if you pull too hard, but the stitch won't hold if it's not tight.” The silver needle moves meticulously, dipping back and forth through dark wool. “What you need is balance, just like with anything else. A little force, a little gentleness.”_

And just like the first time, Rush almost grasps the shape of something here, something that feels important, something that maybe he's supposed to understand. But he doesn't get it before the darkness is jolted away by a scalpel and blood on TJ's hand.

“I didn't know you could play the piano,” TJ murmurs faintly, and it's no easier to watch her bleeding this time.

“The pain brought us out of it,” Rush says before she can. “A little extreme perhaps, but good thinking.”

“Oh. Yes,” she says, blinking down at the scalpel in her hand like she doesn't know what it is. “I didn't know it would be that powerful.”

“Yes,” Rush hurries to interject. “We have to get me out of here and into isolation before wounded turn up here. Perhaps you can call for someone to help me to my room,” he suggests, looking at her expectantly.

“You need to be monitored,” TJ starts.

“Yes, yes, I'll take a kino,” Rush waves a hand impatiently. “We've done that bit.”

She frowns at him uncertainly, and the ship bucks hard enough to send Rush over the side of the bed again. TJ slides to a knee to help him. Her blood smears across the fabric of his sleeve.

“I really should be going,” Rush manages, staring at the stain. He tells himself it doesn't matter, because none of this is real, but he can't quite make himself believe it.

TJ raises an eyebrow. “You think I don't know you're trying to get to the bridge, don't you?”

“Not as though it's getting me anywhere fast,” Rush mutters.

“James!” she calls, and he's not even slightly surprised to grey out and come back with his arms over James and Greer's shoulders.

“It's like being told _not_ to think about pink elephants,” James is saying. “What's the _first_ thing you think about?”

They start to round a corner into a larger corridor, toward the sound of boots pounding. “No,” Rush gasps, and tries to set his feet without much success. He's _not_ doing this part again, he can't, it was so much worse with all those people at once, and maybe worst of all that he's carrying parts of them and doesn't even know who they were. Panic gives him enough strength to struggle against James and Greer in earnest, kicking out wildly and scrabbling.

“Bring it down, Rush!” Greer says sharply into his ear. “We are trying to _help_ you here.”

“Too many _people_.” Rush claws at Greer's arm haphazardly. “Too many at once and I _can't_.”

“I thought you _liked_ knowing people's secrets,” Greer snipes back disdainfully. “Or is it just that you don't want everybody to know _yours_ , huh?” He leans in closer. “Bet you can't handle what's inside my head, Rush.”

And Rush doesn't even have time for dread before the darkness sweeps up and swallows everything with a roar.

_“Don't know how many times I got to tell you before you get it through your head, boy,” his/their father is saying, the leather belt in his hand creaking as he grips it tighter. “You don't talk back to me, not ever. What goes on between your momma and me, that's my business. You're gonna learn that if I have to whip it into you every damn day.”_

_And it isn't every day, but that almost makes it worse, because he never knows when it's coming. He never knows, and hope makes the hurt sharper._

“Shit,” Greer is gasping when the darkness fades. They just look at each other for a moment in mutual horror, and Rush doesn't even have to be told to know that they exchanged almost identical memories there. Greer's look of shock is only wiped away by the ship ripping apart around them.

 

“Fuck,” Rush says as soon as he opens his eyes to TJ and the infirmary. Maybe Young never beat his simulation, but Rush is damn well going to, because the only way out of this must be _through_. When the ship shakes he rolls off the bed, rips the IV from his arm with a bright burst of pain, and bolts for the door.

“Rush!” she yells behind him, and he runs faster than he's run in years, desperation overriding the shaking in his limbs and pounding in his head.

“Rush!” exclaims Camile as he careens around the corner and runs headlong into her. They tangle together and go down as the ship bucks.

Rush makes a noise embarrassingly close to a whine and tries to wrench himself free and to his feet to keep running, but he's not fast enough to get there before she gasps out, “Rush, what's wrong, what are you – ” 

And that tears it, the darkness floods in again.

_“What's wrong?” Sharon is asking, but her hand on their cheek feels off somehow, and Rush knows it's because the body she's touching isn't theirs, it belongs to some woman who was on stone duty, some woman whose name neither of them even know._

_“Please don't,” Camile wants to say, “Please don't pretend this isn't all wrong.” But she doesn't, because she's pretending, too. Instead she just says, “The food still tastes a little strange in this mouth. But you don't.” And Camile tries to distract her with a kiss, as if that isn't also off._

_And they curl up around each other and both pretend to sleep, but they aren't; they're listening to each other breathe, and Camile is trying not to wonder if Sharon hears a difference in this body's rhythms. Close to dawn Sharon finally falls asleep, and Camile watches the worry smooth out of her face. She wonders how long she can be selfish enough to keep doing this, and thinks maybe this will be the last time. She hates herself a little for knowing that it probably won't be._

There are tears on Rush's face yet again when he comes back up, and he's not really surprised.

“You always think no one else has ever loved as deeply as you have,” he murmurs, blinking at Camile. “You should hate me.” Because he came here thinking any sacrifice was worth it to get his love back, and he didn't even think he was sacrificing love just as strong as his.

“I can't,” Camile says, so very gently. She brushes her fingers down the side of his face like some kind of benediction, and he struggles not to flinch away in shame. “Not now. I might do the same thing if it were Sharon.”

Then James and Greer are shifting Camile aside to lean down and hoist him upright. “I'm trying not to think about pink elephants,” James starts.

“Will you _shut up_ about the bloody pink elephants for once!” Rush snaps at her, and just has time to feel a bit guilty before the ship explodes around them.

 

“Isolation, kino, not trying to get to the bridge,” Rush says when he wakes up to TJ and the infirmary. “Right.”

“What?” she says in a tone that suggests she thinks he's speaking nonsense. “Do not make me tie you to this bed, Doctor Rush,” she starts, and Rush can't help the almost hysterical bark of laughter that breaks free from his throat. TJ just looks more alarmed, and there's really no point, so he runs for it again as soon as the ship lurches.

He does _not_ take the corridor to the bridge this time; Camile's a landmine waiting for him that way. Maybe the auxiliary control room? Except no, he's pretty sure that's the direction Greer and James had taken him before, and he's not up for running past all those people again. There's nowhere to _go_ , so he bolts through the closest door into a storeroom and flings himself down behind a pile of crates. The quiet in his head starts to press down on him, and it is absolutely fucking ridiculous that he, of all people, is pained by being alone now. It hurts even more than being buried in someone else's past, and that's saying something. Though at least right now he's sure which self he is.

“I know you can hear me,” he hisses venomously. “What the fuck is it that you want from me? What am I supposed to be learning from all of this?”

There's a flicker of light, and Franklin is crouching down next to him. “What do you think you're supposed to be learning, Doctor Rush?” he answers, only mild interest coloring his tone.

“I'm not in command of this mission,” Rush tries instead. “You don't need to do this to me.”

“Are you suggesting that I do this to Colonel Young instead?” Franklin asks with a curious tilt of his head.

“No!” Rush cries out sharply without even thinking about it. “Leave him alone.”

“Perhaps you meant Camile Wray?”

“Not Camile either,” Rush insists vehemently, shaking his head almost frantically.

“Then whom are you offering me? Perhaps that Airman in the corridor,” Franklin suggests.

“ _None of them_ ,” Rush snarls. “I don't give you permission to expand the parameters. I'm not trading you _anyone_.”

“Really?” Franklin asks with sounds like polite surprise. “Not even for the greater good? You're much more mission critical than anyone else on this crew, and we're under attack. Wouldn't a trade be in everyone's best interests?”

Franklin flickers and melts into Gloria, which is _cruel_. “Isn't _any_ sacrifice worth it?” she says softly. “If you find the secrets of shaping space and time, none of this will matter; you'll be able to remake it all.”

Rush blinks slowly, feeling something shift into focus like he's been staring at one of those trick double-image pictures that can be two completely different things. “It all matters,” he says slowly, as if he's feeling his way into the sentence blindly. “It all does. _They_ all do.”

He's said it before, and he even meant it, but not like _this_. Not like this at all.

She smiles, and it's the last thing he sees.

 

Waking from stasis is unsurprisingly difficult, and it's even worse this time. Rush groans and shakes his head like he's a swimmer trying to clear water from his ears, and immediately regrets it when his shoulder spasms and his head feels like it's going to explode. When he blinks his eyes clear, Young, Eli, and TJ are looking up at him with concern furrowing their faces.

“Hey,” Eli says cautiously. “You're with us now, right?” He looks at Rush like he thinks the answer might be no.

TJ bustles forward to shine a light into his eyes. “How are you feeling, Doctor Rush?”

Rush honestly has no idea how to answer her. He finally goes with, “I have a bit of a headache.”

“About that,” Eli says guiltily. “I have good news and I have bad news.”

“Not again,” Rush sighs.

“What Eli means to say,” Young cuts in, “is that we made it to the next galaxy. We're all safe.”

“But he made a deal with _Destiny_ ,” Rush interrupts. “I know.”

“You _know_?” Eli eyes him warily.

Rush shrugs, feeling strangely light. His head hurts, yes, but it doesn't feel either too quiet or too loud, so he suspects the artifical neurons in his head have gone dormant, at least for now. It doesn't feel like they're going to be flooding him with uncontrollable empathy right now, anyway. “This isn't my first brain alteration, LeetLoot,” he finds himself saying, pulling one of Eli's gaming names from a half-glimpsed memory he'd shared before, just to test if any of it had been real.

Eli gapes almost comically, and Rush has his answer; he's surprised to feel glad relief warm in his chest. He can feel the corners of his mouth turning up, but it seems like too much trouble to stop them, even though it seems to alarm Eli a little more.

“How did you even...? I thought that was a _dream_ , a really weird dream, it was only supposed to be _you_ that...” Eli's mouth opens and closes a few more times, but nothing else comes out.

“All your vitals seem normal,” TJ announces in her professional voice, seeming to ignore Eli's gobsmacked gaping completely, except Rush can see something he can't name flash across her face and her fingers drop to clasp briefly over his own. “But I understand you may have been...altered by _Destiny_. I'd like to do a more thorough work up and have a specialist in to consult.”

“I'll ask for someone when I report in,” Young agrees, putting one hand on Eli's shoulder to shake him gently until he closes his mouth. “We'll figure this out, Rush.” He sounds like he means to be reassuring, and for a moment Rush thinks of him saying he'd be glad that Rush wasn't dead. Simulation or not, Rush can't help but believe it, and he's even more certain when Young adds, “We're getting to the way it's supposed to be...Nick.” He says the name with a hint of tentativeness, like he expects Rush to bristle – and maybe he would, on any day before today.

Rush cocks his head at them all and isn't quite sure what to do with the wisp of amused affection that teases at him, but maybe he'll figure it out as he goes. “I wouldn't worry too much,” he finally tells them. “I think it's all right now.” And the strangest thing is, he's pretty sure he's never really meant that before any time he's ever said it to anyone on this ship; maybe he'd even forgotten what all right looks like. But maybe he's starting to remember.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to learn more about the development of artificial neurons, try [this article](http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-build-an-artificial-neuron-that-fully-mimics-a-human-brain-cell).
> 
> And yes, the Doublemeat Palace _is_ a shoutout to Buffy.


End file.
